Davis down to Senator Wigfall, of Texas, who was dubbed by his fellow conspirators "one of the most eloquent fools on the continent."

To me there are inseparably connected with the history of the rebellion three men in civil life, who stand out more prominently than their associates-Calhoun, the great conspirator; Seward, the dreamer, and Lincoln, the statesman. Calhoun, able, ambitious, logical and persistent, and as unyielding as death; Seward, the philosophical dreamer, political prophet and Presidential aspirant, the coiner of beautiful and highsounding phrases, with no practical ability for a crisis, such as the rebellion of 1861. When the hour of action and trial came, he suggested, in his speech of January 12th, "that we meet prejudice with conciliation, exaction with concessions, violence with the right hand of fellowship," and surrender to the rebels all the public property of the nation in their States, "except where the authority of the United

States could be exercised without war." To crown all, he offered to vote for an amendment to the Constitution which would preserve slavery forever, and thus make the "irrepressible con

In his great speech in Springfield, in 1858, he said:

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is

in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

This great speech made Mr. Lincoln President. After his inauguration he followed logically, and with fidelity, the doctrine announced in that speech.

And when he declared, in his in

augural address, that his oath and duty alike required him to see that the laws were impartially and honestly executed, and added:

"The

power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and en

State elected to maintain the institution of slavery in its borders.

.The world recognizes when it reads Mr. Lincoln's statement of the "irre

pressible conflict," that he was the practical, just and far-seeing states

man.

practical and patriotic people knew what that declaration meant. They knew that Mr. Lincoln intended "that the house should not be divided nor

fall," but that the Union should be maintained forever, and be all one thing-all free. And to the accom

plishment of that great work he consecrated his life.

Mr. Seward would not only have been dismissed from office by any other government, but would have been arrested for usurpation of power -and for holding secret and unauthorized communication with the

public enemy. And I do not believe that any President who had preceded Mr. Lincoln would have continued Mr. Seward in his cabinet for a single day after the formal and unanimous request of the Senate for his removal.

It was Mr. Lincoln's hopefulness and faith in man that made him so long-suffering in his dealings with Seward, Chase and McClellan, and hundreds of others, myself included.

I think he was in that respect one of the most wonderful of men. I can remember two instances, one of which was with reference to myself, the other, Senator Schurz. Schurz was in the army, and was as restless as a nervous man could be, and fired a letter of sixteen pages over the head of his commander to Mr. Lincoln, a thing which, as a military matter, was not to be tolerated. Afterward he thought better of it, and wrote Mr. Lincoln a kind of an apology for having committed this breach of military discipline. The President kindly wrote him: "Never mind; come and see me." When he came to meet him he began to apologize.

"Never mind, Schurz. I guess before we get through talking you won't

think I am so bad a man as some people say I am."

Kindness, of course, broke down Mr. Schurz just as it had other men.

I went up to see him at one time about McClellan-got there early in the morning. He hadn't got into his room. When he came in he expressed some surprise, talking to himself, as I supposed. He hesitated a moment, and said:

"Well, General, what are you doing here so early?"

"I came here to see you."

"What can I do for you?"

Nothing, sir." I shut my mouth as tight as I could.

"You have come up to see about McClellan ?" "Yes, sir."

"Well," said he, "that reminds me of a story."

I was determined to have a solid talk with him. So I said, rising to my feet: "Mr. President, I beg your pardon, but I didn't come this morning to hear a story."

He looked at me and said, with such a sad face: "Ashley, I have great confidence in you, and great respect for you, and I know how sincere you are. But if I couldn't tell these stories I would die. Now, you sit down!" So he ordered a cup of coffee, and we discussed the situation.

That was the peculiar character of the man.

I saw him one day give a pardon for a soldier sentenced to be shot,

where the mother and some women of his household came there. When he did it, of course there was a scene. Tears came to the eyes of many. The President says: "Well, I have made one family happy, but I don't know about the discipline of the army!"

That was the characteristic of the man, and because of that he held together the discordant elements-held together the border States; and I think carried us to victory better than any man, certainly, of whom I have the least knowledge. I don't know of any man in this country that I would rather have had for President, considering it after it is all over, for a quarter of a century, than Abraham Lincoln.

That the historian of the future will accord the highest order of statesmanship to Abraham Lincoln and the Union men of 1861-65 I do not doubt.

A practical world will judge public men by what they accomplish, not by what they profess. Soldier and statesmen alike must be judged by this simple standard.

From this point of view the historian will show that Mr. Lincoln found the government disrupted and bankrupt, with a hostile government organized by conspirators on its supposed ruins. He will show that Mr. Lincoln and a Union Congress proceeded at once to secure its political unity and territorial integrity; that they raised, organized and equipped

armies and crushed the rebellion; that they amended the National Constitution prohibiting slavery forever; that they were both merciful and forgiving as conquerors never were before; that all laws and constitutional amendments were impartial in their character, and operated on the North and South alike. He will show that under their State governments, as reorganized by them, the South has prospered and increased in wealth as never before; that the census of 1890 confirmed all we hoped and promised when we declared that her increase in cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice, iron and manufactures more than doubled in value between 1860 and 1890, and that her plantation and city property increased in value threefold, that a National Government; with amnesty and impartial suffrage, found a complete vindication, both at home and abroad. And knowing this, as each Union soldier and Union citizen who took part in the great drama of 1861 "folds the drapery of his couch about him," and joins the silent majority, he will know that his sacrifices have not been in vain.

There are men before me to-night who bore aloft and followed that flag at Shiloh and Stone River, at Murfesboro, Missionary Ridge and Nashville, and from Chickamauga to Chattanooga and the top of Lookout Mountain, and from Atlanta through Georgia on to Washington, as they carried it in triumph back to their homes prior to placing it here within

the shrine of Memorial Hall. And because it has been riddled by shot and shell, and has been baptized with the blood of the living and the dead, it is all the more sacred to us.

Mr. President, that flag means more to you and to me to-night than ever it did before.

To us, as Americans, and to every civilized people beneath the sun, it symbolizes the unity and strength of the greatest and freest commonwealth.

on earth. It means invincible power and enlightened progress. It means hope and happiness to all the coming generations of men entitled to its protection. It means that never again, on the land or on the sea, can it be a flag of "stripes" to any of God's children, however poor or however black. It means the sovereignty of an indissoluble Union-and a prophecy of the coming continental republic.

An evening and a morning were the first day-but not the last-I spent at Idaho Springs.

The sun had begun to descend toward the Rocky Mountains that day in June. An irrepressible desire arose within me to seek

"Some lone and pleasant dell,
Some valley in the West."

where the dissonance of city life could not be heard-at least for one sweet day. I wished for, but did not find, the wings of a dove that I might flee unto the mountains. Therefore, I took the train, one of the Union Pacific trains, that every evening carries many of Denver's denizens up Clear Creek Canon, some of them to Idaho Springs.

With others I stepped from the train. I pitied the panting locomotive-it was hot and tired too. The sun was withdrawing for the night behind Gray's Peak, and the shadow

which it cast was the first to fall athwart the pleasant homes of that mountain-sheltered city. Then the shadows from other mountains fell fast and faster, until, looking up to the nearer heavens, I could hear them, more plainly than ever before, declare the glory of God; could see the firmament, more plainly than ever before, show forth His handiwork.

The sound of many waters was heard-unusual melody for plaindwellers. There was a bridge spanning the rushing stream. I stood upon it, and listened to what the waves were saying. They were vexed because, when they started, as melted and commingling snow-flakes from mountain tops, they were as pure as they had been white. They had been dammed, here and there, to turn the wheels of stamp mills, sampling works, compressed air engines; had

been channeled, here and there, to wash the very ground upon which we walk in this strange land, that men might gather the gold hidden therein.

That pioneer placer-miner, Mr. Peter Theobold, showed me a nugget of gold, that moonlit night, weighing eight pennyweights, which he took from this creek's bed thirty years ago. A generation has since. passed away, and yet the stream runs on over its gold-charged sand and gravel. Even now, Frank Fitzpatrick counts the gold by pennyweights he washes every evening from its altered current.

The city rests on foundations intermingled with gold.

But midnight was coming on. The moon had risen. Its borrowed raiment fell as softly upon the rocks' rough face as upon "the lush-red roses drooped in dream," in the flower gardens of Plummer and Osbiston upon Colorado avenue. It was late, therefore, when I reached and registered at the "Hotel Stanton." The rest of the night was spent in dreamless sleep.

I believe Anna Letitia Barbauld said,

"In some brighter clime

Bid me, Good morning."

These words came chiming down memory's aisles that first morning at Idaho Springs, for I seemed to be in some brighter sun-bright clime than even my nativity, the lovely far away valley of the Ohio.

One of my first and pleasurable acquaintances was formed at the Stanton, when "good-morning," was involuntarily exchanged between a stranger the Hon. John A. Wilstach, of Indiana, and myself. We soon became friends. He had traveled much; had crossed the ocean four times; had been in all lands and climes. Talking with him about the climate of this locality, Judge Wilstach said:

"As to climatic advantages, the northern side of the town of Idaho Springs, including the site of the 'Hotel Stanton,' is in the same position as the celebrated hotels at Mentone on the coast of the Mediterranean in Southern France. Mentone is the favorite winter sanitarium of Europe. The hotels there, to which I allude, are the Hotel de la Paix' (of Peace) and the 'Hotel des Anglais' (of the English). The Mediterranean Alps there so closely invest the sea, that the spray often dashes across beach and boulevard into the windows of the lower stories, and the 'Hotel de la Paix' is, for nearly half its height, built into the face of the mountain in its rear. The mountain rises to a lofty height. It faces then due south. On its face, therefore, rests, all day long, the sun. Mentone feels no blast from the north. The northern storm slips over the summit into the sea. Is the breeze from the south, it brings from Africa the fervors of the tropics tempered by the waves. The Stanton' has the same advantages of situation. Sheer